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RTEC10 is an index made up of 10 public companies which have revenue that is derived primarily from sales in the embedded sector. The companies are made up of both software and hardware companies being traded on public exchanges.
| COMPANY | PRICE (USD) | CHANGE |
|---|---|---|
 Adlink | 1.22 | -1.781%
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| Advantech | 3.02 | -0.889%
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| Concurrent Comp | 3.58 | -3.241%
|
 Elma | 474.00 | 0.173%
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| Enea | 5.31 | -1.918%
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| - Interphase | 5.13 | 0.000% |
| - Kontron | 0.00 | |
| Mercury Comp | 14.04 | 1.299%
|
| Performance Tech | 1.83 | -2.032%
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| PLX | 3.22 | -0.617%
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| Radisys | 7.39 | 0.271%
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| 52 WK HIGH | 52 WK LOW | MKT CAP (Million USD) |
|---|---|---|
1.24 | 1.15 | 167.08 |
3.06 | 3.02 | 1,668.57 |
3.66 | 3.51 | 32.95 |
474.00 | 474.00 | 108.30 |
5.34 | 5.00 | 93.75 |
| 5.15 | 5.12 | 35.37 |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
14.05 | 13.69 | 429.77 |
1.83 | 1.72 | 20.36 |
3.25 | 3.20 | 143.40 |
7.52 | 7.23 | 204.97 |
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With the arrival of multicore processors, how much of a performance advantage do they actually offer?
Submitted by Anonymous on May 07, 2009
I think we are still at the beginning of being able to truly exploit the potential of multicore architectures. There are simple ways of taking immediate advantage and more sophisticated approaches that are still being explored. One simple approach is to simply assign one operating system to one core and another to a second core. In this scenario, you can implement a real-time controller by running Windows on core A and some RTOS of choice on core B. Data and interrupts can be exchanged via the processor's communication mechanisms such as shared memory. In this case, the RTOS could reliably run a real-time control application and transfer data to the Windows side for operator monitoring. The operator could use all the spreadsheets, networking and user input without interfering with the real-time processes. This has already been implemented in a large number of systems.
Things get a bit more complicated when you want to spread a given application over multiple cores by, say, assigning specific threads to selected cores or even to optimize the performance of the previous scenario. Several companies have developed hypervisor technology to work with the hardware facilities, such as Intel's Virtualization Technology, to partition processor resources-core, memory, I/O devices-to create separate virtual computers, or to implement secure partitions that are safe from intruders but which allow traditional applications to run in other, less secure partitions. These efforts have resulted in definite gains in performance and versatility. For example, using Virtualization Technology along with Intel's Active Management Technology, it is possible to run a control program on a network of devices while at the same time setting up a virtual distributed application to develop on the same system without interfering with ongoing operations. This may sound redundant, but we are just beginning to realize some of the true potential of multicore architectures.
Submitted by Tom Williams on May 07, 2009
Discuss
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I think Tom nailed it. We have many customers using the first approach (Asymmetric Multi Processing, or AMP) exactly as Tom described. In such systems, performance gains can be pretty close to 2x (in a dual-processor syetem), compared to running both functions on the same processor. In theory, depending on how efficient each implementation is, even more than 2x can be achieved - if the single-processor approach involves a lot of context-switching between the functions (thrashing), adding significant overhead. In the AMP approach, it's possible that much of the context switching can be eliminated. Countering that, though, is the added "overhead" of communication across processor boundaries. The amount of that can significantly affect performance and possibly take a 2x gain down lower. As far as Symmetric approaches (Symmetric Multi Processing, or SMP), there seems to be a tradeoff of ease of implementation versus performance. In SMP, while implementation is easier than AMP, and sometimes even close to automatic, there is more likely to be overhead induced by multiple processors accessing common memory. If this can be avoided, and the processors enabled to run on their own continuously for significant periods of time, then on a 4-processor system, performance can indeed approach 4x. But, this is extremely rare and pehaps even unrealistic, so I wouldn't expect to achieve it most of the time. Undoubtedly, the simplest answer to your question is that performance gain is extremely application dependent. Quite likely, the more effort you're willing to invest, the closer you can get to your ultimate performance goal. |
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My name is Ajith and i'm doing my B-TECH 2 YEAR presently in ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING.I'm willing to do some innovative project on new emerging technologies related to electronics.A successful project that could be useful to the community and could be demonstrated within 3 - 6 months.So, could you please guide me through this?If possible send me few project reports,technology behind them. |